MANKATO, Minn. – The second-ranked Concordia-St. Paul volleyball team (11-1, 2-1 NSIC) made it back-to-back road sweeps as they took all three sets (25-22, 25-17, 25-20) at Minnesota State (5-6, 0-3 NSIC) on Thursday night.
CSP made it 17 straight wins in the all-time series with the Mavericks as they improved to 35-4 against Minnesota State and 15-3 in Mankato. The sweep was the fifth in a row in the series as Concordia extended their streak to 17 consecutive sets won against MSU.
On a night where efficient offense proved hard to come by, the Golden Bears were able to grind their way to victory as they finished with a mark of .196 (47-25-112) while holding the Mavericks to .077 (22-15-91) in the win. CSP added an edge of 46-31 in digs and a significant 9-2 advantage in aces while MSU tallied 9.0 blocks compared to 4.0 for Concordia.
Jasmine Mulvihill paced the squad offensively with a match-best 14 kills while she also joined
Ellie Sieling with a match-high 12 digs on the night. Mulvihill added a pair of aces and a pair of blocks while hitting .320 in the win.
Teagan Starkey nearly finished with a double-double of her own with 41 assists and nine digs while adding two aces.
Ellie Kline put up a team-best eight digs for the Mavericks while Emily Kern led the way with five kills in the loss.
Makenna Berger just missed reaching double figures in kills as she put up nine kills in just two sets while
Katie Mattson chipped in eight kills and
Emma Schmidt had six. Schmidt also contributed seven digs, two aces and two blocks in a full line.
Concordia built an early 7-4 lead in the opening set with three straight points before maintaining a slim advantage until the middle stages of the set. From there, the Mavericks flipped the script with a 5-0 run to turn a 14-12 CSP lead into a 17-14 lead of their own. That lead would not last, however, as the Golden Bears responded with six of the next eight to regain the lead as they closed out the set on a larger 11-5 stretch to take it 25-22.
The Golden Bears picked up where they left off in the second set as they claimed the first four points before growing the lead to five at 9-4. MSU managed to even it back up at 9-9 with five in a row before a 7-2 run in favor of Concordia a few points later gave CSP the lead for good at 17-12. That lead would not shrink below four the rest of the way as Concordia took a 2-0 lead with a 25-17 set win.
After Concordia grabbed an early 3-0 lead in the third set, the two teams went back and forth until a late push secured the sweep. The set featured 12 ties and six lead changes as neither team led by more than three until the final few points. Minnesota State's last lead came at 13-12 before an extended 8-3 run gave the Golden Bears the decisive edge at 20-16. The Mavericks trimmed it back to two at 22-20, but CSP finished strong with three consecutive kills to finish it out at 25-20.
CSP returns to Gangelhoff Center for their NSIC home opener on Saturday as they host Winona State at 2 p.m.
